Atommerce, the operator of South Korean mental healthcare platform Mind Cafe, has received 6 billion won ($4.8 million) in strategic investment from Lotte Healthcare and Samsung Venture Investment.

WHAT IT DOES

Launched in 2015, Mind Cafe claims to be the leading mental health app in South Korea in terms of monthly active users, average stay time, number of experts, sales, and cumulative investment and corporate value. 

It has around 1.5 million users accessing its online therapy services. The app also offers an employee mental health benefits solution for employers – over 190 institutions have availed of this package including Samsung Electronics, Naver, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Toss, Musinsa Temple and Seoul City. 

WHAT IT'S FOR

Atommerce has been securing investments for Mind Cafe with the goal to build a mental health ecosystem, according to CEO Kim Kyu-tae. Aside from that, it is also focused on introducing more telemental health service offerings, technology R&D, and expanding overseas. Recently, it launched a community service for its Japanese users, which provided 100 counselling posts per day during its beta run.

MARKET SNAPSHOT

Investments have been hard to come by in Asia-Pacific's mental health space over the past year, but there had been some exceptions. Indian startups Lissun and heyy both received pre-seed funding last year. Singapore-based MindFi, which focuses on corporate mental health and wellness, even raised $2 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round. Another Singaporean company, Intellect, scored an additional $10 million in Series A funding for its expansion. 

Despite a difficult investing season, Atommerce received its latest investment from major investors. This followed its Series B funding raise in January last year where it collected 20 billion won ($16 million). To date, the company received 35 billion won ($28 million) in total funding.